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THE IMPACT OF NAMIBIA’S AFFIRMATIVE ACTION POLICY

ON EMPLOYMENT OF THE DESIGNATED GROUPS

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE

REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

MASTER OF SCIENCE IN ECONOMICS

OF

THE UNIVERSITY OF NAMIBIA, FACULTY OF ECONOMICS AND

MANAGEMENT SCIENCES, DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

BY

JOSEPHINE NAMASIKU SIFANI

MARCH, 2009

SUPERVISOR: DR SELMA T. KARUAIHE

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ABSTRACT

The objective of the study is to determine the impact of affirmative action policy on

employment of the designated groups at management level for the period 2001 to 2006.

The study uses panel data on 35 public and private institutions, selected randomly using

the data provided by the Employment Equity Commission (EEC). The study uses the

Fixed Effects Model (FEM) and Random Effects Model (REM) to determine whether

employment of the designated groups at management level has an impact on the

employment ratio of those institutions. In addition, training offered to designated groups

and a dummy variable to reflect compliance by institutions submitting their annual

reports to the EEC are used as covariates.

Results show that employment of the

designated groups has a significant positive relationship on the employment ratio, while

training shows an insignificant positive impact on the employment ratio. The compliance

dummy shows a significant positive impact on the employment ratio which implies that

the more the number of companies that submit their annual reports to the EEC the higher

the employment ratio. Furthermore, the Hausman statistics of 0.3062 rejects the null

hypothesis that the regressors and the individual institutional effects are not correlated.

This implies that the FEM is preferred to the REM.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………...ii

Table of contents……………………………………………………………………........iii

Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………........vi

Dedication………………………………………………………………………………..vii

Declaration………………………………………………………………………………viii

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